Hormonal Health: Is It Really A Balancing Act?

Have you ever wondered what “balancing your hormones” actually means?

The popular view is that men’s hormones look like this:

Testosterone (less) ⟷ Testosterone (more)

…And that women’s hormones look more like this:

♀︎ Estrogen ↭ Progesterone ⤵︎

⇣⤷ FSH ⤦ ↴ ☾ ⤹⤷ Luteinizing Hormone ⤦

DHEA ↪︎ Gonadotrophin ⤾

↪︎ Testosterone? ⥅⛢

Clear as mud, right?

But, don’t worry, Supplements McHerbal Inc will sell you something guaranteed to balance your hormones!

How can a supplement (or dietary adjustment) “balance” all that hotly dynamic chaos, and make everything “balanced”?

The truth is, “balanced” in such a nebulous term, and this is why you will not hear endocrinologists using it. It’s used in advertising to mean “in good order”, and “not causing problems”, and “healthy”.

In reality, our hormone levels depend on everything from our diet to our age to our anatomy to our mood to the time of the day to the phase of the moon.

Not that the moon has an influence on our physiology at all—that’s a myth—but you know, 28 day cycle and all. And, yes, half the hormones affect the levels of the others, either directly or indirectly.

Trying to “balance” them would be quite a game of whack-a-mole, and not something that a “cure-all” single “hormone-balancing” supplement could do.

So why aren’t we running this piece on Friday, for our “mythbusting” section? Well, we could have, but the more useful information is yet to come and will take up more of today’s newsletter than the myth-busting!

What, then, can we do to untangle the confusion of these hormones?

Well first, let’s understand what they do, in the most simple terms possible:

• Estrogen—the most general feminizing hormone from puberty onwards, busiest in the beginning of the menstrual cycle, and starts getting things ready for ovulation.
• Progesterone—secondary feminizing hormone, fluffs the pillows for the oncoming fertilized egg to be implanted, increases sex drive, and adjusts metabolism accordingly. Busiest in the second half of the menstrual cycle.
• Testosterone—is also present, contributes to sex drive, is often higher in individuals with PCOS. If menopause is untreated, testosterone will also rise, because there will be less estrogen
  • (testosterone and estrogen “antagonize” each other, which is the colorfully scientific way of saying they work against each other)
  • DHEA—Dehydroepiandrosterone, supports production of testosterone (and estrogen!). Sounds self-balancing, but in practice, too much DHEA can thus cause elevated testosterone levels, and thus hirsutism.
• Gonadotrophin—or more specifically human chorionic gonadotrophin, HcG, is “the pregnancy hormone“, present only during pregnancy, and has specific duties relating to such. This is what’s detected in (most) pregnancy test kits.
• FSH—follicle stimulating hormone, is critical to ovulation, and is thus essential to female fertility. On the other hand, when the ovaries stop working, FSH levels will rise in a vain attempt to encourage the ovulation that isn’t going to happen anymore.
• Luteinizing hormone—says “go” to the new egg and sends it on its merry way to go get fertilized. This is what’s detected by ovulation prediction kits.

Sooooooo…

What, for most women, most often is meant by a “hormonal imbalance” is:

• Low levels of E and/or P
• High levels of DHEA and/or T
• Low or High levels of FSH

In the case of low levels of E and/or P, the most reliable way to increase these is, drumroll please… To take E and/or P. That’s it, that’s the magic bullet.

Bonus Tip: take your E in the morning (this is when your body will normally make more and use more) take your P in the evening (it won’t make you sleepy, but it will improve your sleep quality when you do sleep)

In the case of high levels of DHEA and/or T, then that’s a bit more complex:

• Taking E will antagonize (counteract) the unwanted T.
• Taking T-blockers (such as spironolactone or bicalutamide) will do what it says on the tin, and block T from doing the jobs it’s trying to do, but the side-effects are considered sufficient to not prescribe them to most people.
• Taking spearmint or saw palmetto will lower testosterone’s effects
  • Scientists aren’t sure how or why spearmint works for this
  • Saw palmetto blocks testosterone’s conversion into a more potent form, DHT, and so “detoothes” it a bit. It works similarly to drugs such as finasteride, often prescribed for androgenic alopecia, called “male pattern baldness”, but it affects plenty of women too.

In the case of low levels of FSH, eating leafy greens will help.

In the case of high levels of FSH, see a doctor. HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) may help. If you’re not of menopausal age, it could be a sign something else is amiss, so it could be worth getting that checked out too.

What can I eat to boost my estrogen levels naturally?

A common question. The simple answer is:

• Flaxseeds and soy contain plant estrogens that the body can’t actually use as such (too incompatible). They’ve lots of high-quality nutrients though, and the polyphenols and isoflavones can help with some of the same jobs when it comes to sexual health.
• Fruit, especially peaches, apricots, blueberries, and strawberries, contain a lot of lignans and also won’t increase your E levels as such, but will support the same functions and reduce your breast cancer risk.
• Nuts, especially almonds (yay!), cashews, and pistachios, contain plant estrogens that again can’t be used as bioidentical estrogen (like you’d get from your ovaries or the pharmacy) but do support heart health.
• Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables support a lot of bodily functions including good hormonal health generally, in ways that are beyond the scope of this article, but in short: do eat your greens!

Note: because none of these plant-estrogens or otherwise estrogenic nutrients can actually do the job of estradiol (the main form of estrogen in your body), this is why they’re still perfectly healthy for men to eat too, and—contrary to popular “soy boy” social myths—won’t have any feminizing effects whatsoever.

On the contrary, most of the same foods support good testosterone-related health in men.

The bottom line:

• Our hormones are very special, and cannot be replaced with any amount of herbs or foods.
• We can support our body’s natural hormonal functions with good diet, though.
• Our hormones naturally fluctuate, and are broadly self-correcting.
• If something gets seriously out of whack, you need an endocrinologist, not a homeopath or even a dietician.

In case you missed it…

We gave a more general overview of supporting hormonal health (including some hormones that aren’t sex hormones but are really important too), back in February.

Check it out here: Healthy Hormones And How To Hack Them

Want to read more?

Anthea Levi, RD, takes much the same view:

❝For some ‘hormone-balancing’ products, the greatest risk might simply be lost dollars. Others could come at a higher cost.❞

Read: Are Hormone-Balancing Products a Scam?